Final 10 pager : Social Media

Joshua James White

December, 14, 2010

Soc Media, Blogging, Business

Social Media.

When I think of social media, I instantly think of Facebook, seeing as it’s the most popular social networking site in the world. However, social media has other aliases as well, such as Myspace, Youtube, Skype, Twitter, Online Gaming, such as World of Warcraft, and even Google. I would even consider texting a from cell phone as social media and its one I use quite often. First let’s ask, “What is Social Media?” When looking within the definition on Google, I found that social media are defined as, “primarily Internet and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio.” Social Media has literally exploded into the lives of the world’s computer users, and I’m not sure how many people would actually be able to live without it now. I know that I could live without it if need be, but that I would immensely prefer not to. Social media can be a big time consumer and it is very easy to lose track of time. However, it can be argued that this is not the fault of social media, but the fault of the individual user if they abuse or overuse it.

Throughout different of aspects of social media, the main reason of so many being involve is to keep in touch with friend or family across the world. You can find out any piece of information you could possibly be looking for. The website Digital Life discovered that 76.9 percent of U.S. citizens have access to the internet, this shows that social media plays a large aspect in an individuals life. Digital Life is the largest, most comprehensive study of the Global Digital Consumer, ever. These markets represent 88 percent of the global Digital population. By visiting their site you can recover the different access of technology within the regions of the country. The technology these days makes it so easy and user friendly to access social media networks. Social media is the key to the latest news, and it’s the fastest way to get this information. “The surge of new technologies and social media innovations is altering the media landscape. Convenience is everywhere. It’s easier than ever to reach a large audience, but its harder than ever to really connect with it”. Throughout the internet, there are well over 1,00,000 books searched worldwide every year. A google book search scanner can digitally scan 1000 pages every hour. Americans now have excess to 1,000,000,000,000 web pages, 65,000 iproduct applications, 10,500 radio stations, 5,000 magazines, and 200 plus cable t.v networks.

Social media sites have achieved extreme numbers in views. The average statics of recorded throughout the internet states that over 50 percent of the world’s population is under 30 years old and 96 percent of Millennials have joined a social network. The latest most discussed website Facebook, just topped off Google for a “Weekly Traffic Magazine” in the U.S. “As social networking traffic has increased, visits to porn sites have decreased and Social Media has overtaken pornography as the #1 activity on the web.” (Fenton, 2010) According to Social Networking, 1 out 8 couples in relationships in the United States met over social media per year. Looking at this social media topic in a different perspective it would take the radio product 38 years to gain the same amount of people in social networking. The television product would take 13 years to reach the same amount within only one year of users on social media. (2010) Facebook has added over 200 million users in less then a year and Ipod applications reached 1 billion downloads in 9 months.

Now a days, we don’t have the a choice on weather or not we participate in the social media. If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 3^rd largest, right below China and India. Second, with the largest search engine in the world, is Youtube. Americans watch 558 million hours of online video during each month, according to comScore Video Metrix. “In July, Google Sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property with more than 5 Billion videos viewed (representing a 44 percent share of the online video market), with YouTube.com accounting for more than 98 percent of all videos viewed at the property. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 446 million videos (3.9 percent), followed by Microsoft Sites with 282 million (2.5 percent) and Yahoo! Sites with 269 million (2.4 percent). Hulu ranked eighth with 119 million videos, representing 1 percent of all videos viewed.” (Lipsman, 2010) The duration of the average online video was 2.9 minutes and with 75 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video leaves the results to that extent. Another runner-up in the category of social media is commonly experienced from internet users is Wikipedia. “With over 15 million articles and 78 percent of these articles are non-English. If you were paid one dollar for every articles posted on Wikipedia, you would earn $1,712.32 per hour.” (Social Media Statistics, 2010) This is the shocking results of how much social media plays an impact to our everyday lifestyle.

There is still arguments that social networking sites would benefit our society or corrupt it as a whole. Like everything else in the world, there are the positives and negatives overcome to every situation. We can agree that social media is so actively involved the with majority of the world is social networking sites allow people to create new relationships and reconnect with friends and family. Increased communication, even online, strengthens relationships. Also, including Social networking sites allow for creative expression in a new medium. They provide free messaging, blogging, photo storage, games, event invitations, and many other services to anyone with access to a computer and the Internet. 60 million Americans received help with major life issues. (The Strength of Internet Ties, 2006) This is allowing the changing of jobs, the finding of new places to live, buying new cars, caring for someone with an illness and so much more. “59% of students report that they use social networking sites to discuss educational topics including career and college planning, and 50% use the sites to talk about school assignments.” (Creating & Connecting, 2010) Some parents and teachers say that using these sites helps students improve their reading, writing, and conflict resolution skills, learn to express themselves more clearly, and have the opportunity meet new and different kinds of students from around the world. Social media also helps low-income children become more familiar with computers and related technology. One study showed that nearly three quarters of children from poor households have profiles on MySpace or Facebook. By using these websites, they have learned how to edit and upload photos and videos, and have become experienced in using html code to personalize their profile pages. Since so many individuals have join this network, it’s recommended to social networking sites safer for children and also minimum age requirements. Default settings now allow the user’s age to protect children. MySpace for example, requires users to be at least 14 years old, and the profiles of all users under the age of 16 are automatically set to private so they cannot be found during a general search. Before the instilled that that was one of the most talked about issues of social media. The safety of children is a world wide situation over the internet in the last 10 years. Some the commonly known issues regarding to these incests are identity theft, cereal killers and even the stress issues among others throughout experience of social media. In February 2009, MySpace identified that 90,000 registered sex offenders with profiles on the site, while Facebook declined to reveal how many were present on its site. Even if the sites agree to remove sex offenders, they cannot identify all of them or stop them from creating new accounts. This is an issue that has a effect on anyone that might be associated with the internet. It’s a negative situation for such a positive site to communicate with others on.

There has been numerous debates on if social media had a more benefits then non. As I stated earlier within this paper, I know that I could live without it if need be, but that I would prefer not to. I also understood that social media can be a big time consumer within ones life. Recently a private college in Pennsylvania a took up the challenge to block out all sites of social media for a whole week with all the students agreeing to this event. Surveys and discussions were distributed after the week without the entertainment of social media and a shocking 25 percent of the students that this private school reported that they had more classroom concentration. They also addressed at 23 percent of theses students enjoyed listening to the lectures because they were actually paying action instead of browsing through social media sites and throughout the end result 33 percent felt less stressed. Within the blocked period of the social media week, students couldn’t discus homework and activities over the web, but had to do so face to face. The results were that they would get much more done in a quicker manner.

Although there are many positive aspects of social media there are negative aspects as well. Social networking sites entice people to spend more time online and less time interacting face-to-face. The sites offer many time wasting activities that supplant more productive activities. Teens spend an average of nine hours per week on social networking sites. (Creating & Connecting, 2010) Teenagers growing up with the ability to access to social media that don’t have the knowledge behind what theses sites distribute to others. In present day, consequences from over-sharing personal information including lose in job opportunities. Employers actually find embarrassing personal information to gain incite the individual and what they post that the company or business might not find fitting to their work style. This was a topic, that was brought to The US Marine Corps. Which banned the use of all social media sites on its networks because the sites are “a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries.” (Marine Corps). The entire Department of Defense is considering a ban on social networking sites because of concerns over security threats and potential computer viruses. Another negative side to social media is type of bullying called cyperbullying. This type of bullying occurs online and more often than naught, ends up being quite public. This bullying takes place throughout online activities such as email or instant messaging. A 2009 study found that 17.3% of middle school students have been victims of cyberbullying. (Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying, 2009). Victims often experience a drop in grades, decreased self-esteem, and other symptoms of depression. A false sense of security may leave social networking site users vulnerable to security attacks such as hacking, leaking sensitive information, and sending viruses. People trust messages sent through social networking sites and consider them more legitimate than emails. Remember,social networking sites were created to make money, not to improve peoples’ lives. These websites use networks of online friends to accumulate data about people for the purpose of selling advertising. The sites place cookies on the users’ computers, gather information, and track interests to show personalized ads. These advertising practices may constitute an invasion of privacy. Throughout all these negatives aspects towards social media, still the creation of it is for the greater good. If you’re one of those individuals who pay more attention to the negative aspects of social media, and not partake in it, it will only inhibit your ability to become engage with the world around you along with the technology that is being produced at this day in age.

Ultimately, as social technology matures, it will continue to evolve to fully reflect fundamental human behavior.
Social technologies will grow by specializing in certain areas of human need and working in concert with each other to fully reflect how people live their lives in the real world. As online networking continues to evolve, you will see more social technologies working together to allow you to be the multi-faced person you truly are and to nurture and fulfill of all your interests and desires for more information and new people with whom you can connect. Social technology will continue to adapt to our needs. There will be more freedom and more ways to fully realize online the best, most fulfilling version of you. Social Media is the future, you can jump on the train with it or get left. Throughout the years that I’v experienced social media, I been influenced on both sides of benefiting me.

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